Portable electronic devices such as smart phones, tablets, notebooks and other electronic devices have become an everyday need in the way we communicate and interact with others. The frequent use of these devices may require a significant amount of power, which may easily deplete the batteries attached to these devices. Therefore, a user is frequently needed to plug in the device to a power source, and recharge such device. This may require having to charge electronic equipment at least once a day, or in high-demand electronic devices more than once a day.
Such an activity may be tedious and may represent a burden to users. For example, a user may be required to carry chargers in case his electronic equipment is lacking power. In addition, users have to find available power sources to connect to. Lastly, users must plugin to a wall or other power supply to be able to charge his or her electronic device. However, such an activity may render electronic devices inoperable during charging.
Current solutions to this problem may include devices having rechargeable batteries. However, the aforementioned approach requires a user to carry around extra batteries, and also make sure that the extra set of batteries is charged. Solar-powered battery chargers are also known, however, solar cells are expensive, and a large array of solar cells may be required to charge a battery of any significant capacity. Other approaches involve a mat or pad that allows charging of a device without physically connecting a plug of the device to an electrical outlet, by using electromagnetic signals. In this case, the device still requires to be placed in a certain location for a period of time in order to be charged. Assuming a single source power transmission of electro-magnetic (EM) signal, an EM signal gets reduced by a factor proportional to 1/r2 in magnitude over a distance r, in other words, it is attenuated proportional to the square of the distance. Thus, the received power at a large distance from the EM transmitter is a small fraction of the power transmitted. To increase the power of the received signal, the transmission power would have to be boosted. Assuming that the transmitted signal has an efficient reception at three centimeters from the EM transmitter, receiving the same signal power over a useful distance of three meters would entail boosting the transmitted power by 10,000 times. Such power transmission is wasteful, as most of the energy would be transmitted and not received by the intended devices, it could be hazardous to living tissue, it would most likely interfere with most electronic devices in the immediate vicinity, and it may be dissipated as heat.
In yet another approach such as directional power transmission, it would generally require knowing the location of the device to be able to point the signal in the right direction to enhance the power transmission efficiency. However, even when the device is located, efficient transmission is not guaranteed due to reflections and interference of objects in the path or vicinity of the receiving device.
A technique for configuring a wireless power transmitter may require a physical configuration user interface, such as control panel of buttons, switches, or other physical configuration control. However, this technique may add substantial cost to the system and may require an undesirable increase in the wireless power transmitter's size, which may be inconvenient to operate whenever the wireless power transmitter has to be physically installed at a location that may have accessibility limitations such as ceiling tiles, or high up on a wall, among others. Another technique for configuring a wireless power transmitter may require an operator browsing a web page of a local server or cloud based configuration service, which may host a web page for configuring the wireless power transmitter. Notwithstanding, in certain situations the operator may not be able to configure the wireless power transmitter by a web service external to the wireless power transmitter, for example, when the wireless power transmitter is not within range of any network device such as the operator's LAN, when there is no LAN available, when LAN has no access to the internet, when the wireless power transmitter needs to be configured at a specific location for configuration that may not have network services such as an installation depot, a laboratory, or a workroom, among other situations. Thus, a need exists for a wireless power configuration web service, which may be located and run from within a wireless power transmitter, in order to provide configuration of a wireless power transmitter within a wireless power transmission system without the need of an external network service.
A wireless power transmission system may need to be configured at installation time based on the different requirements such as specific installations, types of users, types of client devices, and the number of devices that conform the system, among others. However the system may need to be re-configured periodically as system requirements of operation change or as devices are added to or removed from the system. Inconsistent configuration of the system may lead to improper operation, inefficient performance, malfunction and cessation of normal operation, among others. For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for a system and method that may enable a consistent configuration user interface to set up the system, at installation time or later, preventing contradictory configuration or omission of configuration, which may prevent a breakdown of the system or unexpected operation of the system.